Michael Worthington describes his contribution as a "Giant-brutal-modernist-robot-helicopter-landing-pad-transformer-skyscraper-hospital-building-block-kids-toy-H." *$%&ing awesome.

"I"

By Jeremy Mende

"L"

Brett MacFadden, who co-runs a custom type studio in SF, incorporated his love for the non-letter elements of typography -- for the rules, dashes, dingbats, and borders -- directly into the structure of the "L."

"N"

Brian Singer’s "N" riffs off the controversy over the replacement of "nigger" with "slave" in new editions The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, by blacking out all words except "nigger" in an excerpt of the book.

"P"

By Scott Thorpe

"Q"

By Denise Gonzales Crisp

"S"

Joe Sueda, of Stripe SF Graphic Design / Typography, says his letterform is "not influenced by the formal aspects of graffiti, but more the concept of tagging." Somehow it’s about calligraphy, too. And himself. (He chose "S" because it’s "the first initial of my studio’s name and my last name.") "S"weet.

"X"

By Justine Mendoza. All the letters in the slideshow, plus the 17 not shown, are available as limited-edition, silkscreen prints for $25 at PMCA’s store and online. More info here.

Type Porn: Twenty-Six Artists Reinvent The Letters Of The Alphabet

We've selected some of our favorites above. Enjoy!

Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) has opened a nice little exhibit sure to draw high-minded type aficionados and snotty-nosed kindergarteners in equal measure: It's a showcase of each letter of the alphabet, diced, dyed, deconstructed, and otherwise shamelessly artified.

The exhibit, Getting Upper, features 26 letters by 26 California artists and graphic designers. The high-minded explanation, per PMCA's website:

Inspired by language-based experimentation and how it can unlock new avenues of cultural expression, Getting Upper curator Amos Klausner charged twenty-six designers with re-imagining a letter from the alphabet, using the illegibility and deconstructive nature of graffiti as their starting point. If "getting up" describes the recognition that a graffiti artist seeks through proliferate tagging, "getting upper" is the term that Klausner uses to suggest breaking free from history, from the global marketing culture that long-ago borrowed the best of the graffiti scene, and from legibility itself. The result is an alphabet that reconsiders our collective understanding of what a letter can be and how it functions to create language and meaning.